Saturday, March 12, 2011

Clearing up a point or two

I made a couple of blunders in yesterday's post about the earthquake and tsunami in Japan.

Firstly, I reported the local time incorrectly (wrong UTC correction). It occurred at 2:46 PM, Tokyo time.

Secondly, I stated that this earthquake was larger than the one in 2004. That one was magnitude 9.1, and thus about five times as energetic as this one.

I also based my writing on the tsunami in Sendai on early reports that it was about ten meters high. This has been revised to 7.5 meters, still about 23 feet, and from the videos I have been seeing, enough to move far inland in such a flat coastal plain, and to do horrific damage.

Now I note that there was an explosion at one of the nuclear plants; overpressure in some steam lines. As a strong proponent of nuclear power, I recognize this will further delay any future installations. Clearly, the "fail safe" designs advocated in the 1960s have not been fully implemented.